Mon­day begins with Cyrus Shams regain­ing con­scious­ness on the cold, hard land­ing of a stair­case, his head spin­ning as con­cerned muse­um employ­ees hov­er around him. Pra­teek, a famil­iar docent he rec­og­nizes, is among those stand­ing by, offer­ing a steady­ing pres­ence amidst his con­fu­sion. Over­whelmed by a pro­found sense of loss and dis­ori­en­ta­tion, Cyrus’s mind races with mem­o­ries of Orkideh, the Iran­ian artist who passed away, leav­ing an indeli­ble mark on him. Though the employ­ees are eager to con­tact med­ical help, Cyrus dis­miss­es their con­cern, attribut­ing his faint­ing episode to a sim­ple mistake—skipping break­fast. He insists he’s fine, try­ing to down­play the inci­dent and avoid­ing the intru­sion of fur­ther scruti­ny, but the under­ly­ing sense of grief still lingers, cloud­ing his thoughts.

Pra­teek, notic­ing the unease in Cyrus, takes a seat next to him on the bench, his sym­pa­thy evi­dent in the way he address­es Cyrus’s feel­ings of con­fu­sion. As they begin to speak, Pra­teek inquires gen­tly about Orkideh, whose death has clear­ly affect­ed Cyrus more than he’s will­ing to admit. Cyrus, caught in a whirl­wind of emo­tions, states that he didn’t know her very well, por­tray­ing him­self as mere­ly a fan, but the truth of his loss weighs heav­i­ly on him. In an unex­pect­ed moment of con­nec­tion, Pra­teek begins to recount his own painful expe­ri­ence of los­ing his aunt to can­cer, a grief that res­onates deeply with Cyrus. The raw­ness of their shared sto­ries becomes a pro­found turn­ing point in the con­ver­sa­tion, lead­ing Cyrus to reflect on the depth of loss he’s been fac­ing. These mem­o­ries trig­ger a flood of emo­tions in him, push­ing him to con­front his per­son­al grief in a way he hadn’t antic­i­pat­ed.

The exchange grows even more inti­mate as the con­ver­sa­tion shifts to loss, iden­ti­ty, and the ways peo­ple deal with the pass­ing of loved ones. Cyrus recalls a poignant con­ver­sa­tion with Orkideh about the com­plex­i­ties of life, loss, and the strug­gle to find mean­ing in the face of death. Despite the emo­tion­al weight of their dis­cus­sion, Cyrus attempts to restore a sem­blance of nor­mal­cy by offer­ing Pra­teek a Snick­ers bar, a small but sig­nif­i­cant ges­ture to break the ten­sion. This moment, while triv­ial in the con­text of their grief, high­lights the basic human need for con­nec­tion and com­fort even in the dark­est times. The shared expe­ri­ence of offer­ing a sim­ple gift amidst sor­row under­scores how even small acts can cre­ate bonds that help peo­ple weath­er emo­tion­al storms. Though the con­ver­sa­tion has deep­ened, the weight of Orkideh’s death still hangs over Cyrus, remind­ing him of the pro­found lone­li­ness he now faces.

As Pra­teek leaves, Cyrus is left to sit in qui­et con­tem­pla­tion, still enveloped by the emo­tion­al tur­moil of his grief. He feels as though he’s lost a piece of him­self with Orkideh’s death, but at the same time, there’s a sense of real­iza­tion that he must find a way for­ward. Step­ping out of the muse­um and into the cold, Cyrus is sud­den­ly con­front­ed by the chaot­ic world around him, which feels even more dis­con­nect­ed now than ever before. His thoughts are inter­rupt­ed when he checks his phone and notices sev­er­al missed calls and mes­sages, all of which lead him to a voice­mail from Sang Linh, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Orkideh. The voice­mail car­ries a sense of unfin­ished business—an unre­solved con­nec­tion that stirs some­thing deep with­in Cyrus, prompt­ing him to reflect on Orkide­h’s lega­cy, which con­tin­ues to influ­ence his life, even after her pass­ing.

Lis­ten­ing to Sang’s mes­sage, Cyrus is struck by a mix­ture of emotions—confusion, antic­i­pa­tion, and even a hint of hope. It seems that Orkide­h’s sto­ry is far from over, and he is left to nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ty of his feel­ings and the poten­tial for clo­sure that the voice­mail sug­gests. He con­tem­plates the pos­si­bil­i­ty of meet­ing Sang and explor­ing the unfin­ished threads of Orkideh’s life and work. The weight of this rev­e­la­tion leaves Cyrus on the cusp of some­thing new, yet deeply unset­tling. As the chap­ter clos­es, Cyrus stands at a cross­roads, unsure of what lies ahead, but dri­ven by the need to con­front his past and the lega­cy of Orkideh, all while reflect­ing on his own jour­ney of grief, iden­ti­ty, and emo­tion­al dis­cov­ery.